


passion pod

by janed



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Alternate Universe, Awkwardness, Denial, First Time, Frottage, M/M, Manky Boot Hate, Sex Pollen, Total Denial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-05
Updated: 2011-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-25 17:56:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janed/pseuds/janed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Sex pollen!</p>
            </blockquote>





	passion pod

**Author's Note:**

> Set early on, way back in S1. In an alternate timeline created by "Timeslides" where Rimmer was somehow human and alive until he smashed those boxes and got exploded. Didn't he say something about fondling just before that? idk! Yay excuses to write sex!

Dave was in his bunk looking at a magazine and wondering how long the "samples" he'd taken from the botany labs would take to dry out. He'd stashed them in a tin that he put behind some of Rimmer's rubbish on the shelf, but the urge to find a better and more obvious hiding place was so great that he almost got down from his bed to do it right then. It was all to aggravate Rimmer as much as possible, of course. Dave had concocted the scheme some days ago after an argument about reefer had sent Rimmer round the bend. He'd been so enraged by the idea that Dave didn't think there was a single thing wrong with having it or smoking it or allowing other people to smoke it as well if they liked that Dave really _had_ to do it. He had to.

Dave had gone down to the labs earlier, while Holly was having some time offline so that he'd have a better chance of no one catching him out before he was ready. He'd found a spindly little bush that grew likely-looking leafy bits and had thrown in some thin, pointy-capped mushrooms he'd seen growing in the muck underneath a table just for the added bonus effect. It didn't bother him that he didn't know exactly what they were -- he doubted that anyone ever would without a serious barrage of scientific testing. He didn't think it really mattered since he knew that the only drugs Rimmsy-whimmsy had ever seen in real life were those disgusting cans of learning drink and the smelly vitamins the size of chicken eggs he took every day after his lunch. Rimmer wouldn't be able to tell the real shit from bullshit even if someone paid him to, but he would still get all flared-nostrils and self-righteousness about it anyway.

Dave had already worked out what he was going to say about it when Rimmer confronted him. Something about how he'd found it all in one of the officer's quarters! Oh, yes, and didn't you know they looked just like these ones he'd heard of! Yeah, yeah, Rimmer, man -- this'n is a special super-charged reefer that could make you really float around your room and these ones here are a sort of mutant mushroom that let you literally communicate with the universe! Chat with planets, can you imagine! Oh, it would be classic. Rimmer would fall for it all, no doubt.

He was chuckling a bit as he was thinking about it, delighted with himself and his superior ability to plan new and interesting ways of winding Rimmer up, but he stopped dead when he heard it. _It_. _Rimmer_. Humming loudly as he came down the corridor.

Speak of the devil? Couldn't even think of him around here!

Dave scowled for just a moment, then turned the page of his magazine and set himself to looking comfortable. It wasn't difficult. He considered it his natural state. He was confident that when Rimmer walked through the doorway, he'd look over at Dave and see that Dave had been lying there for hours -- so still and quiet that perhaps he hadn't even breathed.

Rimmer walked through the door. Dave fought back the urge to smile, to even twitch the tiniest bit. He forced himself to look fully involved in the magazine, as if it were such engrossing literature that he couldn't tear his eyes away even long enough to look up and locate where that disgusted huffing noise had come from.

Any second, he promised himself. Any second and--

"Lister, just what the hell is that?"

Erm. Not exactly what he expected, but it would do. When Dave looked up, he really almost lost it. Rimmer was standing in front of the table looking at him with a more smegged off expression than Dave could have hoped for.

"Oh! Rimmer," he said, totally surprised, totally solid. He was a genius, man! A total genius! "Man, you wouldn't believe what I've been reading!"

Rimmer didn't take the bait. He ignored it completely, in fact, and said something Dave perhaps should have expected but hadn't expected all the same. "You've been in the uncleared areas again, haven't you? In the botany labs."

Dave didn't tick, but he felt it rush over him. How did Rimmer always fucking know? Was Rimmer watching him on the security monitor? Dave didn't doubt it. He'd watched the smegger eavesdrop on other people's conversations a hundred times. Rimmer'd never understood that hearing wasn't the same as listening, so he probably thought watching was the same as, you know, just casually seeing someone in the corridor.

"I haven't been anywhere, Rimmer. I've been here. Do you want to hear the story or what?"

"Lister, I know your tiny deranged gerbil brain is an endless knot of misfiring synapses mired in madras sauce, but you've brought some sort of seed pods back with you." Rimmer pointed to Dave's arm. "They're right there on your sleeve, thickie. Right there on your stupid fat arm."

As Rimmer spoke, Dave heard himself exclaim, "I haven't!" But at the same time that he was saying it, he'd looked, and he'd realised that in reality -- Yeah, no, actually, that's what he had done.

Down the back of his arm in a double line were sixteen little seeds stuck like trouser lint to the sleeve of his uniform shirt. They were light yellow but with the faintest hint that they'd just been newly green. He remembered seeing them growing on a vine near the mushrooms. He must have accidentally brushed against the plant and picked them up without knowing it. Perfectly natural nature-type thing, that.

"You dumb goit," Rimmer said, taking a few steps back toward the corridor -- a direction Dave wholly approved of him going in -- as Dave climbed down gingerly from his bunk. "There's no telling what sort of weird crap that's meant to be!"'

Dave rolled his eyes and unbuttoned the few buttons that he'd bothered with that morning. As he began to shrug out of his uniform shirt, Rimmer couldn't hold himself back any longer and he stepped over quickly from the doorway to supervise and just generally get in the way. Between the two of them, they had enough limbs for an octopus. It was really too bad that they didn't have the co-ordination skills.

"Careful! Don't jostle them. Do you want them to crack or something?"

"Lemme go, man! I can take off me own smegging shirt!"

Even protected in the botany labs greenhouses the plants had obviously mutated so that those things that had looked to them like they were only biggish seeds actually amounted to gigantic pollen-filled spore pouches instead. All the pulling and tugging and shouting disrupted the protective outer covering of said gigantic pollen-filled spore pouches which sent their precious payloads loose into the air. Sixteen silent puffs of bright yellow pollen so fine that it shimmered like gold dust in the light. The dust spanned out, swimming in the ocean of air currents created by their stupid scrapping. The puffs began to expand hugely, impossibly hugely as though the puffs were absorbing the oxygen and using it to multiply as they went. Those silent little puffs of gold became a cloud that filled the air all around them in only a moment.

He flung his shirt over toward the window. "Oh, shit!"

"Don't breathe! Don't breathe it in!" Rimmer said, practically leaping away, over toward the sink and away from the door. Which was probably the best idea since the door had chosen to slide closed and locked at that exact second. Probably due to an atmospheric sensor in the room being triggered when the pollen had been released.

Dave waved his hand in front of his face, trying to dispel the pollen already working its way into his sinuses. He looked over at Rimmer who was holding one hand over his mouth and nose and slapping his other against the pressure sensor on the edge of the screen's frame. Good luck getting Holly when he's offline, smeg-for-brains!

"Don't breathe!" Rimmer kept shouting from behind his hand, muffled and panicked. "Holly, damn you! Where are you? Don't breathe, Lister!"

But it was too late, he already had done.

And done, and done, and done. By then, Dave had breathed in a good bit of the gold-shimmering pollen. It had rushed straight up his nose -- the sudden gasp he'd taken when the pods had first erupted had helped it along -- and he was already on his way to being well and truly arseholed. Within heartbeats, he could feel the effects setting in. It felt as though his temperature had climbed into the millions. His heart was surging his blood in great pulses of sensation. Yes, sensation! He felt as if he were nothing but one massive sensation. He could feel every hair he had standing right on end. He could feel every single molecule of his skin buzzing with the most blissful tingle, the most wonderful need for touch.

He leaned carefully against the bunks and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself somehow.

"Whoompwhoomp!, whoompwhoomp!, whoompwhoomp!," his heart said.

"You'reaknob!, You'reaknob!, You'reaknob!," he thought it might have really meant.

"Nnnnn," Dave said, and passed a hand over his face. He couldn't focus on anything but how wonderful and sensitive he felt! His fingertips were so amazing now. It was as if the amount of pleasure they could bring had been magnified by a thousand. He ran his fingers all over his face again and again. Bumping over his nose -- noses! what a thing? -- sliding along his cheekbones. He pulled his fingers down to his chin and dragged them over his throat. His Adam's Apple bobbed as he swallowed and he let his fingers play over the shape of it.

He pulled on the collar of his tshirt with his other hand, fanning himself, trying to get a bit of breeze down to his overwarm chest. A path of pleasure traced after his fingertips as they bumped against his collarbone again and again and he couldn't stop just feeling that. He had to rub it, rub his collarbone, and then let his hand slide down over his chest. He teased his nipples through the fabric of his tshirt and it made him shiver all over.

The air was so warm. When had it ever been this warm?

One hand on his chest, the other had already migrated to his crotch and he was rubbing himself through his trousers. He was always quick to get hard but this seemed unreasonably so. Like one second he wasn't, then the next he was.

Christ, oh, he couldn't stand feeling so hot all over! It was unbearable. He groaned, low and quiet, and then had to look around when he realised that it wasn't him that had groaned at all. The room seemed to swirl around him when he turned. It looked like there was a hazy fog behind his eyes and it cast the room golden and glowing fuzzy around the edges. It made some things -- some certain things -- stand out in sharp reflect.

Rimmer was still standing in the same place he'd been a moment ago -- the same place he'd stood a million times before -- but when Dave looked at him now, it was like a revelation. Rimmer was smegging tall! He was like a tree-tall! Dave hadn't climbed a tree since he was a boy and now... Well, now he wanted to climb Rimmer so badly that he could taste it. He wanted to grab onto those long arms, those stupid biceps and broad shoulders -- Oh, _fuck_ , yes. He wanted to climb up Rimmer's body with hands and legs and full-smegging-body contact -- all the way up from the ground. All the way up to that shocked-looking face, those softly parted lips, so that he could take those flushed cheeks in his hands and--

"Lister..." Rimmer'd only murmured it, but he might as well have screamed it into The Cat's megaphone the way it jolted Dave into action. He was across the space separating them and pressed fully against Rimmer in a second. His hands -- his delightful hands that had only a moment ago brought himself so much pleasure with their cleverness, were now clutching at Rimmer's sides, grabbing onto his belt, and hauling him close as their mouths mashed together.

Their kissing was rough and inexpert, pushing lips and gasping mouths slipping against each other. Rimmer's hands were gripping his shoulders, fingers pressing deep like a massage as he rubbed his palms against the balls of Dave's shoulders. He groaned into Rimmer's mouth, against the side of his face as he dragged his lips across to kiss and lick and kiss and suck and kiss and kiss and kiss all over his long, lean, gorgeous neck.

Their lower bodies were still touching as well. Their feet bumping in this new sort of scuffle as their struggled to get as close as they possibly could. Dave could feel Rimmer's cock was as hard as his own, straining against the fabric of his trousers and making itself known against Dave's hip. Dave had already got Rimmer's thigh between his and was rubbing against him like a dog humping its beloved owner's leg. His fists gripped like vices to Rimmer's belt, using Rimmer's weight for leverage.

Rimmer's arms wrapped around his shoulders, holding Dave close against him, hugging him so tightly, as he allowed Dave access to his skin. Rimmer moaned appreciatively, a low, sexy sound that caused a funny twist in Dave's stomach. Dave's hands slid around Rimmer's back to grab his arse. He growled in his throat and grabbed a bit more. It always looked like it was such smegging tight trousers Rimmer wore -- Dave had never understood until now!

"You've a great arse. So firm and round and--" His hands squeezed, fingers wriggling. "M'gonna dream about it every night now."

Rimmer groaned in a shaky sort of way and squirmed against him. "Don't bother dreaming, stupid, just come and get it."

Rimmer began to pull his tshirt up his back, exposing his skin to the explorations of Rimmer's strong hands. It felt as though there must've been ten perfect streaks of golden fire trailing from Rimmer's fingers. It felt as though Dave's body was being awakened a skin cell at a time.

Dave was so glad he'd showered earlier. It had been _a bit_ since he'd bothered with the whole thing and he'd been well ripe when he'd sniffed his armpit before his trek to the labs. He felt now that it had definitely been worth it, though. All his good clean skin begging to be touched? Yeah, everything was perfect.

Well, almost perfect.

Dave clutched and pulled at Rimmer, kissed his neck and chin until Rimmer was turning his face just right and kissing him back. He stepped back, pulling Rimmer with him by the front of his belt. As he began to manoeuvre them over to the bunks, Rimmer caught on to his thought, and suddenly they were there. Rimmer hauled his shirt over his head as he was trying to sit down, and though Dave nearly took his arm off on the ladder, he barely felt it. Too intent on getting horizontal now that the idea had been brought to mind.

"Watch it. You won't get another of those," Rimmer said, as Dave was sliding into the bunk backward. Dave grinned and shrugged, reaching for Rimmer's belt and undoing it. Rimmer's uniform shirt was still buttoned up all the way to his throat -- he still had his smegging tie on! But it didn't matter to Dave. Nah, what he wanted was further south on Rimmer's geography.

Rimmer watched him dumbly for a moment as he started to open up Rimmer's trousers. His hands were steady, but his breath was shaking with excitement as his fingers were getting down the zip and his palm was sliding over the hard outline. Rimmer shivered, and before Dave could get a good grip, Rimmer had surged forward. He pushed Dave back onto the bunk and climbed on top of him. His belt jangled as it hung undone. Dave grabbed onto the end of it and pulled solidly, pulled until it slid out from the belt loops completely. He grinned as Rimmer looked down at him so smegging seriously, then grinned more as Rimmer leaned in to kiss him again. He pushed one hand into Rimmer's curly hair, slightly sweaty now from their activities, and he grabbed onto his shirt with the other, pulling Rimmer down until Rimmer was flush on top of him.

It was awkward trying to get it just right, but with some squirming and twisting, they did it. Dave had to spread his thighs wide and let Rimmer get between them. In the warm, gold light, it seemed exactly the thing to do. It seemed the _best and only_ thing to do. Like it was something that had been waiting to happen to them all the time they'd known each other. Waiting inside the cupboards and shadowy niches in the corridors of their psyches where no one looked. Waiting and waiting for just the right moment to pounce and... Make them hump each other stupid.

Rimmer pulled his mouth away hard, breathing heavily. He looked down at Dave with something akin to awe. Really horny smegging awe. "My God, Listy, you're really gagging for it, aren't you?"

"Oh, yeah," Dave moaned, and it was true. He felt he'd never been this horny in his whole life. His head tipped back as he humped up against Rimmer's stomach. He looked back at Rimmer's face, the golden fog in his eyes making it hard to keep them closed. "I can't help it! I want feel you everywhere!"

Rimmer groaned. "No problem."

Rimmer's cock was pushing along Dave's crack. He could feel the hot, hard length of it through the taunt-pulled fabric of their trousers and he rubbed against it shamelessly. He grinned as Rimmer groaned and gripped him, his pumping hips working hard, pushing that positively enticing _thing_ against him again and again until he couldn't think about anything but getting his hand on it.

"Come on, come on," he muttered, licking at his lips. Wanting more, wanting as much as he could smegging _get_. He reached down and started pushing his hand into Rimmer's flies -- All ahead full! No going back now! No stopping this time! -- and then it was in and then it was _in_ his _hand_. Hot and human -- Rimmer's cock gone so hard it felt like a steel bar wrapped in skin. Dave groaned with him as he handled it, pumping it hard, not letting up for a second. His own stiff cock throbbed in sympathy as he imagined what exquisite torture it would be to have someone mucking about in his kecks right then. There was still all that lovely friction, yeah, but it wasn't the same! "Rimmer, man. You've got to touch me!"

Rimmer shuddered and there was no way to deny how it made Rimmer feel to think about it. About touching Dave like Dave had been doing to him, about the two of them doing it to each other at the same time. It was like a brand new idea had been invented not by them, but for them, so that there was no way that it could've been said that they were involved in its creation, but only that they stood to benefit from its existence.

Gold-dusted bliss pulsed through Dave and he moaned as Rimmer's hands fumbled at the front of his trousers. Fingers giving some teasing touches but then relief as his cock was pulled out and -- "Oh, yeah, man, yes, that's it!" -- Rimmer began to touch him straight away, began to fondle his cock. Rimmer's fingers and palm slid all over Dave's hard dick, quick and efficient and good, though at that moment, there was nothing in the universe that could felt bad to Dave.

Rimmer pulled Dave's trousers and his boxers down further, over his arse and down his thighs, but couldn't get them all the way off because of their bodies in the way and also the little fact that Dave's boots were still on. Rimmer looked at him, smirked, and he grabbed the laces of Dave's boots and jerked them, hard. One boot first, then the other -- Dave had hardly breathed before the mouldy old things had snapped apart! Rimmer _mmm_ 'd in satisfaction and had Dave's boots off and chucked onto the floor in a second. Then he was hauling Dave's clothes off his legs and climbing back onto him and Dave grabbed him hard, wrestling him down, kissing him and laughing and laughing.

He put his sock feet over Rimmer's thighs to hold Rimmer tight in place above him and he just lost himself in the feeling of it. Grinding his hips up against Rimmer's stomach had been good when they were dressed but it was even better now that they weren't. Rimmer's trousers slid off his arse with Dave's help -- a wild thrill going through him as he slapped his bare hands onto Rimmer's cheeks, got himself a more naked moan than he could have hoped for, then squeezed and rubbed away the sting. Dave craned his neck, moaning and pressing kisses to Rimmer's neck as they writhed against each other, slick and almost satisfying. Almost enough.

Rimmer's arm snaked under Dave's shoulders. Rimmer groaned and squeezed him, lying on top of him, all over him. Dave just squeezed him back, gripping him tight with his thighs as well as his hands. Loving the way that Rimmer's sweaty skin felt against him, loving the way Rimmer's firm arse felt in his grip.

"Oh, yes. Ohyes." Rimmer hips were staggering as he breathed faster and harder. He pushed his face against Dave's neck, muffling the way he moaned as he came between them. The unmistakable wetness so slippery on Dave's naked body -- the obscene sensation made Dave's toes curl in his socks. Rimmer's sides heaved and his breaths were shaking. And Dave, with his head pushed back against the pillow and his back arched, held onto Rimmer's body, using his feet for leverage as he humped up against Rimmer. Jerking and crying out like it was being wrenched right out of him when he finally, _finally_ felt himself let go.

It was as he imagined standing at ground zero during a massive nuclear explosion would feel. Light -- golden light -- rushing so fast it went right through him, dissolving him into nothing as he clutched onto Rimmer, the only thing he could reach.

Later, he would remember the lazy way that he'd kissed Rimmer's neck and shoulder as they'd lain wrapped together. Later, he would remember how Rimmer had looked at him, all traces of stress gone from his face making him look so nice and so handsome that Dave had had to kiss him again and again. Later, he would remember how his hands had swirled circles on the still-sweaty skin of Rimmer's lower back and how Rimmer'd moaned into his mouth and squirmed as gooseflesh had raced across his exposed skin. Later, he would remember how he had fought the urge to sleep, but how he hadn't been able to keep the golden fog from dragging him down. Later -- much later when he least wanted to think about it, which was always, every time it came up -- he would remember how completely blissed out and contented he'd felt, and he would bloody _hate_ himself.

He dreamed about a beautiful forest of flowers as tall as oaks. In his dream, golden sunshine was streaming through the enormous petals so very high above his head and Dave wanted to climb every one of them right to the top. He thought that he'd die if he didn't bask in that yellow-gold glow and feel the warmth and love of its embrace. He was halfway up one of them, shimmying his body up its thick stem with his hands gripping the most lovely round lumps that grew from it, when the world jerked sideways and he was falling, falling right into wakefulness. He might have yelled in his sleep or it might have just been Rimmer.

"Ah!" Rimmer banged his head on the ceiling of the bunk, then slammed his side into the ladder as he scrambled away from Dave as quickly as he could. He pulled up his trousers as he went, nearly tripping himself as they were tangled around his legs after who knows how many hours of sleep.

Dave was right behind him, flying out of the bunk like there was a super-speed conveyer belt under his arse. He tried to keep his tackle covered with his hand as he grabbed his twisted and rumpled trousers from the floor and shook them loose from his pants.

"Ah!" Rimmer yelled again, and then he was hauling his shirt off like it was on fire.

Dave-- Oh, he couldn't even think it! The _spunk_ that was dried to Rimmer's shirt! Their spunk! Forget blushing -- Dave's whole head felt like it burst into flames and he nearly put his foot through the crotch of his pants as he tried to get them back on. Rimmer had better remember not to pick that one out of the dirty washing to wear later!

Rimmer was pulling at the buttons of his shirt as fast as his fingers would go, then shaking it off his shoulders. He only got it stuck on one wrist before it was lying in a heap on the floor. His tie was still around his neck, and Dave thought it was smegging unfair that it would be now that he would notice just how much that stupid tie looked like an arrow pointing directly to Rimmer's penis.

Smeg!

"It was the pollen!" He groped 'round for his own shirt, knowing that it had to be somewhere and finding it finally hanging off the edge of Rimmer's bunk. His mind was racing, looking for a way out, a way to undo it, but seeing only denial as an exit. "It was the pollen! That's all!"

"Yeah, and don't you forget that, miladdo!" Rimmer was shaking a finger at him, his face gone a terrible blotchy red. "Don't you forget it! Don't get any ideas about it happening again or anything disturbing like that! Don't even consider the idea of getting any ideas!"

Dave ground his teeth, snatching his cap off his bed and waving it Rimmer. "Me? Don't worry about _me_! Don't _you_ forget it!"

"Oh, there's no chance of that happening! I'll never forget it!" Rimmer yelled in his face.

"Nor will I!" Dave yelled back.

"Good!"

" _Good_!"

Hate was a more familiar haze in their eyes and they glared at each other, shaking with embarrassed rage.

The screen flicked to black and Holly's face appeared all at once. He looked concerned, though somewhat relieved once he saw that both of them were at least capable of standing upright with matching smegged off expressions.

"You dudes alright? I came back online and I heard that there's been some sort of weird stuff going on in your quarters. A lockdown protocol being initiated because of a particulate in the air? It's dodgy dodgy looking stuff, I have to tell you."

"We're fine, Hol," Dave ground out, feeling ill and angry, though Rimmer's annoyed and _annoying_ voice blared right over his.

"Oh, yes, we're just tickety-boo! Except the subroutines that you left in charge had us confined to quarters for no reason and, oh, where were you, you smeg-for-brains computer? Nowhere to be found, that's smegging where!"

Holly looked at Rimmer's chest. "What's happened to your shirt?"

Rimmer made a horrible face and puffed out his chest. The brown arrow of his tie swinging from his neck like a pendulum. "Don't you worry about my shirt! I'll wear whatever I like around here. I'll go around stark naked if I feel like it!"

"Enough!" Dave barked, disliking how easy it was to imagine how Rimmer would look naked. Rimmer whirled and glared at him, then pushed passed him to get another shirt. Dave glared at his back, squeezing his hands into fists and wishing his eyeballs shot daggers. He looked over to Holly. "Look, Hol, man. Everything's fine now, alright? So leave it alone."

Holly looked unconvinced. His eyes flicked from Dave, to where Rimmer was muttering to himself and getting on a clean shirt, then back to Dave. "You two are getting weirder every day."

"You're the only weird thing around here!" Rimmer interrupted, striding across the room to the screen. "A computer that needs to rest its mind? How completely pathetic." He slapped his hand onto the pressure sensor, turning Holly's face off and the mirror back on.

"Oi, now that was unnecessary! You didn't have to do that and you didn't have to say that!"

"I'll do what I like," Rimmer said, straightening himself in the mirror. "Your thoughts don't concern me."

"Oh, yeah? Don't they?" Dave went up behind the git, just as close as he could stand. He tried to meet Rimmer's eyes in the mirror but Rimmer ignored him. He could smell Rimmer's body. He could smell his own body on Rimmer's body. He stepped away, back over to the table where he couldn't smell a smegging thing. "Ok, Mr Unconcerned. You busted me smegging boots' laces, right? So, I want them back. I mean, I want you to give me new ones."

"Those ancient disintegrating strings? How long have you had those pieces of decrepit filth, Lister? What do you do, reuse them?" Rimmer finished with his tie and turned to give him a nasty look.

"Yeah, I call it recycling!" Dave snapped.

Rimmer chuckled under his breath and looked up at the ceiling as if that was exactly what he'd expected a gimboid like Dave Lister to say. Dave looked at him incredulously for a moment, but then he realised! That evil smegger had probably been looking for an excuse to bust his laces for ages! He'd probably sat 'round and fantasised about it while Dave slept or something. Licking his ugly chops and rubbing his stupid hands together. Obsessed with Dave's manky boots. Ugh, Rimmer was really sick! Now Dave was never going to take his boots off again! He twisted his cap onto his head and thought about giving Rimmer a shove but didn't. It wasn't worth it. Dave didn't want to start... _touching him_ again, anyway.

Rimmer rolled his eyes, totally oblivious to how close he was to being bashed about. "Please, Lister, you can't hold me responsible for what could only be chalked up to your gross boot lace negligence."

"What are you saying to me, Rimmer?"

"Here's an idea for you: Boot lace maintenance. Schedule a time to assess the age and relative condition of your laces. Take appropriate action at that time to secure proper lace function and stability of the entire boot area. It's elementary stuff, Lister."

"Boot lace maintenance? You're mad." Dave crossed his arms, then uncrossed them as an idea burst fully-formed into his mind. He grinned, then grinned more because he couldn't help himself. "Until you deliver the new ones, get me others from the shelf there, ok? They're in a green tin."

Rimmer made a face but stepped over to rifle around for Dave's tin. "A properly running life requires maintenance on all levels, Lister. It's as simple as that! If you'd listen to one thing I said, maybe -- just _maybe_ \-- you could scrounge up some meager amount of success for yourself one day. Ugh! What's this smeg?"


End file.
